Gravity
by SilverStarsAndMoons
Summary: Fulfilling a prompt: "Will/Emma: Ken's line about Emma "crying for an hour when his elbow accidentally touched her breast" really kinda stuck with me, and makes me think that Emma's been a victim of violence at some point." WARNING: COULD BE TRIGGERY


No one ever said loving a mysophobe was going to be easy.

No one ever said love was going to be easy.

If he had thought that life would be happily ever after with Emma, he was delusional, and he realizes that now. Because it's failed to be all about the germs, and more about the fact that Emma is a lot more damaged than she appears. Life has not been easy to the red-haired guidance counsellor, and he can't lay it all at the feet of her phobia.

He never knew how deep these things can go – how functional someone can be when they're broken. Eventually, it comes down to coping skills; how long can you hide the fact that you're in pain, all the time? How long can you cover it up?

Eventually something has to break. He's only glad that when she broke, he was there, because thinking of her breaking alone is more than he can stand.

She's so delicate, but that thin core of strength is what he's attracted to most – her level gaze; her soft, steady voice. He has always leant on her before in times of trouble. He never regarded her as anything else but shy, and maybe a little quirky.

What he didn't realize is that everyone has secrets. Phobias rarely come up out of nowhere. And while she may have offered a story about a childhood trauma as a way to explain the reasoning behind her special needs, it's much deeper than falling into a runoff lagoon.

Though he never pushes, and she never lets on, it's unspoken between them: Emma Pillsbury has bigger issues than where germs hide.

One night, he finds out just how big they are.

//~//

Emma always said that she didn't like Ken Tanaka because he reminded her of the washed-up jocks that used to work at the Pizza Express on the main strip of her small Appalachian town. They were scowly, fat, slightly sweaty all the time, and unnaturally arrogant, not to mention pushy. Will had always agreed; Ken was the epitome of the washed-up high school football star, and he knew from the beginning that he wasn't right for Emma. However, he couldn't help but have a soft spot for Ken – the guy had been popular in high school and they had always had each other's back.

He tried to pawn off the guilt, later, as saying he just didn't know. He didn't know that Emma didn't like Ken because of who he reminded her of. But he did know, subconsciously; he knew from the way she recoiled when he leaned towards her, or she snatched her hand away even if he rested it a few inches from hers.

Yeah, he knew. And nights afterwards, when she can't be touched; when she's in the shower for an hour and a half and he has to pee badly, but can't bring himself to knock on the door and ask her if he can come in, he can't shake that feeling of heavy guilt, that he knew all along that there was something else there, but he thought friends came before women he'd only met six months ago.

No one's perfect, but Will knows that he could have done better for her. He could have saved her more trauma.

He holds her in his arms now; he feels the slight quiver of her back against his stomach, and he vows to do better for her.

She's the best thing that's ever happened to him. She deserves better.

//~//

While trauma is subjective, it isn't lying to herself to admit that what happened in college was not right. She's used to burying her issues under bright, coloured clothing and bright smiles; she's used to swallowing her complaints and showing positivity to the world. The only problem with always smiling under adversity is that you don't learn how to deal with the adversity when it rams you right in the stomach.

Ken Tanaka is a good man. Emma knows innately that this is true. He's flawed, and he's rough, and he has an odd idea of what constitutes romance, but he means well. The thing is, you can mean well and still make someone else uncomfortable. Emma put up with it for three dates before she broke.

When Will gets the call at midnight, he has no idea who could possibly be calling him, not to mention who would call him in the middle of the night and risk Terri's wrath. When the voice comes over the phone, it's so soft he can barely hear it.

"Hello?" His voice is a whisper; Terri's snoring on the other side of the king-sized bed and he doesn't want her to wake up.

There's just shaky breathing at first, then, "Will?"

The voice is choked with tears, but the accent is unmistakeable – the slight blurring of the Ls in his name; the little intake of nervous breath.

He slips from the bed, into the hallway, closing the door softly.

"Emma?"

"Listen, I'm sorry," she begins, and he shakes his head, forgetting she can't see him.

"No, Em, it's okay. What's wrong – what happened?"

"Well, um, I know it's late, and I'm sorry, I really am, but I'm at Ken's place and I can't get home. My car won't start," she finishes in a rush, her voice ending in a sob that catches in the back of her throat. "He won't drive me; he's really angry, and I'm, well, I'm scared, and I didn't know who else to call – I don't know anyone here, and I had your number from when we went to Carmel High together for Glee – "

He hears himself making noises of comfort, his voice soothing. "Shh, Emma, slow down. Okay, I can come and get you. I'll be there in ten minutes, okay?"

He moves around his house quietly, trying to make no noise. Slipping a shirt over his bare chest and his coat over that, he closes the door without a sound and in five minutes, is speeding towards Ken Tanaka's home. He hasn't forgotten the way; Ken had a party for the last Superbowl and Will had ended up spending the night after too many beers.

She's standing outside Ken's house, leaning against the banister that edges his front steps. As he pulls up to the curb, she turns her head, and in the light from the porch, he sees that she's been crying.

She slips into the car and says nothing until they're speeding down Oakwood Avenue, and then she turns to him, tries to smile.

"Thanks." Her voice is foggy, and he smiles back, but he doesn't say anything and she only speaks enough to direct him to her condo by the park.

She unbuckles her seatbelt and accidentally brushes his hand; he opens his mouth to apologize and she begins to cry.

"Oh, Emma. What happened?" His voice is gentle, and she fumbles with the seatbelt until he reaches over and unbuckles it for her. She looks at him, her eyes shining with tears.

"He, well, Ken tried to . . . be romantic, I guess. It just wasn't a good situation," she sniffles, trying to smile, but her face twists into a grimace, and his face turns sympathetic.

"Oh, Em, I'm sorry. Are you okay?" He notices her shaking, gently touches her wrist. "Emma?"

She doesn't say anything, but her lower lip trembles, and he suddenly realizes that she is not going to be able to make it upstairs on her own. He gets out of the car, opens her car door.

"Come on."

With his hand on the small of her back, he manages to get her into the elevator without a problem, but when she tries to open the door of her apartment, her hands shake too hard to turn the key. A syncopated, slightly musical rhythm taps against the hardware of the door for a moment until she ends up dropping her keys, her hands over her face, and he realizes that this is not just Emma freaking out, this is Emma having a nervous breakdown.

Somehow, he gets her inside. He takes off his shoes, and when she can't move from the mat at the front door, he takes hers off, too, places them on the shoe rack inside the closet. She has labels there, tidily in a row. He makes sure he slots them into the right space – Mary Janes, Dolce & Gabbana, 2007.

He takes her coat off, his hands warm on her shoulders. She stares at him with wide brown eyes and finds her voice for the first time since the car.

"The wooden hangers for this coat. It'll lose its shape."

He complies; she manages to take control of the situation enough to walk into the kitchen and start the kettle. He flops on her couch, yawning, glad that it's Friday and he doesn't have to go to school tomorrow, but simultaneously wondering how long it will take Terri to realize that he's not in bed beside her. Luckily, she's taken her sleeping pill tonight.

There's silence in Emma's carefully-organized apartment, but it's quickly broken by a crash from the kitchen and in an instant, Will is on his feet.

"Em?"

There's no answer, but he can hear her sobbing again. When he comes into the kitchen, she's standing beside a broken white-and-silver china mug and crying as if her heart would break.

"Jesus, Emma!" He manages to move her away from the shards of glass, careful of her stockinged feet. "Look, why don't you sit down, hmm?" He rubs her back tentatively; she freezes for a second, then leans into him, and almost immediately, his arms go around her, his hand on her hair.

"Hey, shh," he breathes into her ear, and she clings tighter to him. Unnatural as this is for Emma, Will doesn't feel like it's going to get strange later. In fact, he's concerned right now with this woman who never, ever seems to show extreme emotion crying all over his shirt, tucking her head into his shoulder.

"Em, did he hurt you? Did he do something to you?" Will's voice is quick, angry, and Emma pulls back, her teary brown eyes huge and anxious in the kitchen light.

"No, no, Will, no, he didn't mean to. He didn't do anything wrong."

"Then what? What has you so upset?" He rubs a tear away from her cheek with his thumb; she blinks and turns away from him, her shoulders setting.

"He just . . . isn't the right match. He just doesn't understand."

Will suddenly feels tired and exasperated. "What, Emma? I don't understand, either."

She turns to him, standing there in her pink skirt and frilly white blouse, and sighs. "I was in college when it happened. I don't expect most men to understand my . . . issues. But I do expect them to respect them." Her hands trace a pattern in the air; rest at her sides.

"His name was Tyler; he attended college for sports and recreation on a football scholarship. We both drank a lot of Jaegermeister one night and one thing led to another. I thought I wanted it," she whispers, biting her lower lip. "But I didn't, and he wouldn't stop. He pinned me on the bed . . ."

Her voice breaks; Will takes a step towards her, but she wards him off with an upraised hand. "He was so . . . rough. And he didn't . . . rape . . . me, but he pushed my skirt up, and touched . . . and I screamed, and then he came in his pants, and it was just so disgusting, and wrong." Her overpronounciation of the G at the end of the word hangs in the air awkwardly. Will simply stares at her.

"He told the dorm that I was a tease, a prude, and that his goal in life was going to try to get me . . . well, you know. And then he was always THERE. Every day, everywhere I went, after every class, he'd be waiting for me, with that leer . . ."

Her voice catches in her throat. "I couldn't get away from him. I couldn't forget what had happened. And Ken, he tried to kiss me, and his hand brushed over my chest, and I lost it, Will." She smiles, sadly, her lips quivering.

"Oh, Em."

"He got angry. Said I was a tease . . . and it was just like Tyler. And I thought, what if he tells everyone at school? What if he tells you? And I feel so dirty right now . . . that I couldn't control myself enough so that his feelings wouldn't be hurt, either." Her voice breaks; her face crumples, and Will crosses the floor in one movement to take her in his arms again.

"Emma," he begins, and he feels her freeze in his arms. He doesn't say anything after that, but lets her go, his hands resting on her shoulders.

"I am so sorry," he finishes, and she looks down, her wet eyelashes glistening in the pale kitchen light.

"No, please don't. It was my fault. I'm the one who screwed up, here."

"Emma . . . it wasn't a screw up, okay?" He clears his throat, looks her right in the eyes. "Ken should have been more understanding of your . . . quirks. And I shouldn't have pushed him to ask you out, either," he finishes in a rush.

"No," she agrees, but then busies herself with the shards of her cup, and he watches a tear slip down her cheek again.

"Emma . . . you don't have to live this way." His voice is barely above a whisper; he's not even sure she's heard him, but as she stands, her hands cupping the broken glass, he sees the scars that silence has carved on her, reflected in her eyes.

"I don't know any different."

//~//

On Monday, he's at the school before she is, and he places a gift wrapped package on her desk.

When she opens it, a white china cup with the silver E just like the one she broke catches the light from the window, and for the first time since Friday night, she smiles.

He watches her from the doorway and meets her eyes. She breaks her gaze first, but not before a flush of colour suffuses her cheeks.

//~//

He couldn't have foreseen the breakup with Terri, and maybe that's a good thing. He and Emma didn't have time to plan any of what happened next. It happened naturally, riding on the force of their attraction.

But he doesn't forget what happens when things move too fast around Emma. And he deals with the breakdowns over dirty patches on the tile that won't lift; he spends hours in hardware stores choosing just the right kind of cleaner for the stains on the sink; he forgoes his favourite pizza place for a month when an E. Coli scare has Emma terrified of eating in restaurants, and he gets exasperated, wondering what the hell he's gotten himself into, but he understands it better, now.

The gravity never really lifts when you're traumatized. And step by step, he's committed to helping her get better.

After all, she deserves it.


End file.
